Our protagonist meets his handler.

Brandon never knew a simple knock could sound so imperative. Was it just anxiety at what lurked behind the door causing his heart rate to skyrocket, or was it something in the actual **** of the sound? Just a simple tap on the door, yet to him it felt harsh and commanding even without the overbearing volume of an irritated landlord. Fear tore him in two, urging him toward the door but keeping him rooted on the couch he knew. Should he answer it? Could he afford not to? What if it was all a trap, and the—

“I don’t have all day.” A woman’s voice had him bolt-upright in a second, in more ways than one. He raced to the door and unfastened the locks (all apartments in Gotham came standard with at least two deadbolts), nearly bruising his fingers in the process. He pulled the door open, and before he could get out of the way a woman shouldered past him with enough strength to send him a step back. She scanned his front room with discerning eyes just below the brim of a chauffeur’s cap, and an ankle boot with a sensibly low heel nudged one of the dirty socks piled on the carpet. “Classy.”

“Um, can—“

“The door.”

“Right.” He closed his front door with a near-slam. “So how—“

“ID.”

“What? Why? Don’t you know who I am already?”

Her woman’s mouth twitched in a momentary approximation of a smirk. “I do. Still need to see some ID, just in case.”

Brandon opted for his Lexcorp badge, still in the pocket of his coat, over the (suspended) driver’s license in his wallet. The woman examined it front and back, but she didn’t take out any tool to scan it. She just checked the numbers, nodded, and handed it to him. He tucked it in its safe place and allowed his shoulders to loosen slightly. If this was a hit, or a sting, or something like it, he probably wouldn’t have lasted this long. “Am I good, Miss…?”

“Graves. And you’re good enough.” She proffered a small box, one he hadn’t even noticed until she held it within arm’s reach. “I assume you know what’s in here.”

He took it with clammy hands. “A necklace?”

“An amulet of Dionysus. As of tomorrow, you’ll be a temp worker at the Watchtower. Go to 19400 Malvern, office 15C, by eight. That’s where the general-access teleporter system to the Watchtower is in Gotham. You’ll be expected to actually work up there, and you don’t want to do anything that puts you under suspicion, so you’ll follow the actual contractor policies. You know, when you’re not screwing people.” She paused for laughter; none came. “The full policy paperwork is in the box.”

Brandon opened it and looked at the first page of documents sitting on top, but just a few sentences of “eligible contractee” this and “limitations of interaction” that made his eyes water. He could probably just assume it was like LexCorp: stuffy, secretive, impersonal, and far dirtier than anybody in management wanted to let on. Instead he let Miss Graves drone on while he lifted the papers, and there it was. He knew the necklace—the amulet from all the videos, and now one of them was here, close enough to touch. Was this the one that had laid atop Wonder Woman’s warm, bouncy tits while she fingered herself stupid? Or had it sat between Killer Frost’s more modest breasts, jangling against her sternum while she humped a fire hydrant in broad moonlight? He imagined what it might have witnessed, even things that hadn’t made it on camera, and for an instant it all seemed so real, so close. With this, could he really have the most desirable women in the world? Any woman, any time he wanted?

He glanced at Miss Graves, who sneered at his apartment while she said…something or other. He wasn’t listening. While she was distracted, he looked her up and down. She wasn’t a superhero, but she could have been one with her statuesque physique and curves to die for. Her black stockings reminded him of Black Canary’s fishnets, and the dark miniskirt teased him with visions of what hid beneath. It was a shame she wasn’t one of his targets, or he could…but, actually, wasn’t she? She was a woman, so the amulet affected her, didn’t it? He could try it, and if it failed, he could just say it was a test to make sure he was using it right. He laid the box and paperwork on his sofa and slipped the necklace over his head, laying the chain on his shoulders and letting the amulet itself settle against his stained tee shirt.

Miss Graves stopped mid-sentence, and her eyes bored holes through him. Just her glare caused him actual pain, and he raised his hands to defend himself. And then she looked left, then right, and all around the room. “The hell?” she muttered, only audible because he stood a yard away. “Did he leave in the middle of my speech? Where could he even go?” Her jaw bulged and her teeth ground together, but her glare didn’t settle back on his face. “I swear, does Lex get off sending me to talk to the assholes or something?”

Brandon poked her in the shoulder, right in front of her, where she could have stopped him in an instant if she’d so chosen. The foam shoulder pad under her jacket buckled, and she shifted a fraction of an inch, but she didn’t otherwise respond. He tried something more daring, taking off her hat and letting deep brown hair spill across her shoulders. She brushed it back with her fingers, an **** adjustment to keep it under control, and tapped her foot on his worn carpet. Throwing caution to the wind, he splayed his fingers out and raised his hand, giving her one last chance to avoid his grasp. When she only huffed, his hand fell directly onto her breast, squeezing the giant mound through layers of fabrics.

And still she did nothing. Miss Graves ignored him completely. He added another hand to grope her tits from behind, and she checked her watch. He unbuttoned her jacket and shoved his hands under her shirt to fondle her more closely, and she drummed her fingers on her waist. He hiked up her skirt and rubbed her lacy black panties, and she murmured something ironic about a janitor keeping a filthy apartment. Her only reactions were subtle: her nipples growing hard, her face turning red, her panties dampening with moisture. While she ignored him entirely, her body still knew what he did, and slowly he turned her on while she stood blithely unaware.

In a burst of passion he grabbed her head and pulled her to him, shoving his tongue into her mouth. She kissed him back despite her wide open eyes, trading spit with a man she barely knew existed. He worked his finger into her panties, slowly burrowing to her pussy, and he had barely reached her clit when she made a grunt like half-formed words. He pulled back, and she sighed. “Hell with it. If he’s not even going to listen, he can find his own damn way there.” Miss Graves looked at the door, but her hips nudged Brandon’s hand and drew them lower. He let her grind on him for a moment longer, then pulled his hand back and stepped away. As soon as he broke physical contact, Miss Graves grabbed her hat and stormed out his door without bothering to fix her untucked shirt, unbuttoned jacket, or raised skirt.

Brandon looked at his own hands. This was real? This was real! He’d actually felt up one of Lex Luthor’s personal assistants in his apartment, and she hadn’t so much as winced. She had acted like he wasn’t there, even when he was halfway to finger-fucking her and her tongue had his pinned to the bottom of his mouth. This couldn’t be a trick. It was too thorough. Why would Lex Luthor, of all people, go to such an elaborate ruse to fool some custodian into embarrassing himself in front of the Justice League? It made no sense. It had to be true.

A genius billionaire had contacted a random grunt in another city and given him magic powers so he could knock up as many superheroes as possible. This was somehow the most logical explanation, and yes, Brandon understood exactly how insane it sounded. But what was the saying? “When you eliminate the impossible, what’s left must be true, however improbable.” Brandon was pretty sure Spock had said that.

Tomorrow he would be living a life of fantasy, sneaking around the Watchtower and banging any woman he wanted. But…but why wait? This was Gotham! His city had more costumed heroes and villains per capita than pretty much anywhere in the world! Especially in his low-rent, low-maintenance part of town, there was about a fifty-fifty chance he could pop into any police precinct and find at least one D-list mask-wearer sitting in a holding cell or waiting for the cops to process their latest catch. And if he remembered correctly, the precinct a few bus stops away was actually being used as a local foothold for the investigation into the original amulet incident. Which meant the Justice League had been popping in and out of it for the last week, and individual villains had been shipped in (under heavy watch, of course) for interrogations and examinations. Everything was under total lockdown, and nobody, not even Summer Gleeson, had been able to get a glimpse past the front doors. But if he could walk right in, undetected, and find his way to where the League was working…

He left without even grabbing his coat. Gotham could get chilly in the fall, but he would find something to warm him up real quick.